Tips for Everyday Mindfulness # 8: Drop the Story

I love how insight comes at random times. There we were, my fellow mama friend and me working out at the Y, BY OURSELVES with no kiddos at 7:15 at night, moving our tushes on the elliptical trainer, talking about life, what we are wrestling with, letting go of, what makes us mad, what brings true happiness…when, bam! It hit me:

“I am living my life from the story (or “stories”) I tell myself.”

In an instant I saw how I have wrapped much of my identity around a few stories I keep telling myself over and over again. Stories that I keep playing out in my relationships and let me stay “the victim.” Stories that I keep asking others to heal.

We do this, don’t we? We have an experience, we have an emotional reaction to that experience, we tell folks about it, and then a few more folks, and soon enough we are waaaay attached to the storyline.  We’ve wrapped our identity around who we are in that story. It can be stories from everyday living: “I’ve had such a day! The kids are in the backseat arguing, I have had to go pee for an hour now, I’ve had no break….” It can be stories that we’ve carried for decades of deep trauma, hurt, grief, loss.

In that moment with my friend at the Y, I felt grace move into my heart and I said to myself: “Enough. Drop the story.”

I knew which ones I needed to drop, was ready to drop. I could see how holding on to them had kept me from being fully alive. And full of delight.

Dropping the story is an act of kindness.

Letting go of your story. Not forgetting your stories. Not ignoring them or pretending they didn’t happen or harshly trying to push them away. This is about freeing yourself from how you define yourself, how you play the victim, and how TALKING about the story doesn’t get us any closer to being content.

Sure all that lets off some steam, it makes us feel affirmed…but it can be a slippery slope to “feeling justified” and soon enough we have wrapped who we are around our story.

Can we just BE WITH what arises in us and see it as a story we are telling ourselvea?

Can we just feel it in our bodies and watch it shift as we give it some compassion?

Can we just soften and, as Eckhart Tolle says, “Just drop the story?”

Can we stop asking our partners, parents, or this world to “see what I’ve been through” and see it for ourselves, give ourselves the sweet embrace we long for that no one else can give us, and fall into the arms of our own Self, completely accepting and kind and nurturing and say,

“Ahh, I am here, Dear One”

and say, “That has just been a story you’ve been telling yourself. Wake up now, sweet one, and, feast on your life?”

I believe there is a time and need for voicing/telling our stories. Every culture from the beginning of time has told “our stories.” The stories I am talking about here are the ones that we have based our sense of “self” on that actually rob us of a voice and hinder our “becoming.” The ones that keep us myopically turned inward.

We need to be heard. We need to tell our stories.

But there comes a time when we find that we are holding those stories much too tightly, clinging to a false sense of safety…and identity. There comes a time when it creates more suffering to hold onto those stories than it does to gently, slowly, softly, quietly, confidently stand at the river’s edge and allow the waters to carry them.

There is no forcing this. THAT would be harsh. There is only allowing, opening, and letting go when Life is calling us to wake up and we respond with no effort, with only the deep knowing that it is time.

Love’s Quietness: My Husband’s Everyday Valentine Gift

“True inward quietness…is not vacancy, but stability—the steadfastness of a single purpose.”
-Caroline Stephen

Last night I felt drawn to go back and read some journals from years past. I happened to pull out the one from my first semester in graduate school, the fall I met my husband, Brian. In reading some of my entries, I was struck by something: what I sensed in him and between us then is what I still sense today. And I needed the reminder.

“Sept. 29: Brian came over and we made dinner. Oh how it seems to just flow between us…He has a beautiful, kind presence… I find myself thinking of him as I meditate and pray, feeling a soft smile emerging from a deep space within me. I pray that God will direct my head and heart to what’s really at my core. Whatever God is up to – let God be up to it.”

“Oct 1: I have fallen for Brian. ‘Ahhhh!’ is all I can say. My heart is exhaling. There is a gentleness about him, a profound peacefulness…how can I be taken by someone from such a deep, soothing, peaceful place in me…Tonight he laid his head down on my lap and I just sat there petting his head. We sat like that in silence for an hour, our hands softly touching. No words…just ‘being.’ This is true grace. I am at peace, wrapped in peace, melting into Brian.”

I knew at the end of that first semester that we would be in each other’s lives. I saw within Brian a profound peace, a gentle and powerful stillness that made every cell in me exhale.

A decade later, life looks completely different than it did that first semester. A new town, tough pregnancies, two kiddos who are our greatest teachers, loneliness, sleepless nights, a mortgage, forgetting it’s recycling day, budgeting, births, deaths, and everything in between.

As I sat there reading these entries, I was struck by how, over the last few years, I have often been frustrated with Brian’s quietness. I’m not talking about the typical “wife wants to talk, husband is talked out” kind of frustration. For an introvert, Brian is actually really awesome about engaging me in conversation.

But rather this: I can get so frustrated thinking that Brian is not “in it with me” because he doesn’t “match” my inner emotional state – when I am stressed about getting out the door in the morning, worried about registering for preschool, packing for a family trip, or figuring out the grocery list.

Sometimes I have pulled back over the years, mistakenly thinking that I am “in it alone” when Brian is calm and quiet. And when we feel alone many of us protect ourselves, often retreating inward, withholding, cowering back, blaming, lashing out. And if you are anything like me, we push away the very thing we need.

But what I am coming to know and heal – through a lot of meditation! – is that my frustration and anger have nothing to do with Brian’s quiet. Just as Eckhart Tolle says, “You are never angry for the reason you think you are,” I am angry because I am filled with fear. Feeding that fear are old hurts, old patterns being relived, hijacking me while I stand in our kitchen, holding C., getting A. ready for school, searching for my keys, and talking harshly to Brian. It is the fear that “I am alone in this.” As I let that fear hijack me, it grows, I push Brian away, and I feel even more alone.

But the times when I acknowledge that I am starting to feel alone, breathe with it, and choose to connect to Brian, I receive the very thing I need: to be alongside a kind, stable, steadfast soul drawing me into a vast landscape of peace and tender love. Brian’s quietness is that peaceful landscape that holds and heals my fear of “being in it all alone.” In ways I never imagined that first New England fall when I fell in love with Brain, his quiet, gentle presence is actually my healing balm, a soothing salve that nourishes and strengthens me.

I once asked Brian when we first started dating what he believed his purpose was on this earth. He said, “To love.” I have written about how I have three (not one!) words for this year: soften, strengthen, and forgive. When I choose to turn toward those sweet blue eyes, Brian’s peaceful presence softens my worries, strengthens my light, and draws me into a sense of “home” within my own soul. THAT is Love. And I am grateful that Love forgives and embraces again and again.

Happy Valentine’s Day, sweet love.

Dear Dr. Trauma Expert:

Dear Dr. Trauma Expert,

I went to your conference the other week.  Your research is cutting-edge.  I bow to how you take on “the powers that be” of the mental health world, challenging the way we diagnose and treat complex trauma in children and adults.  The findings of your research and the outcomes of the work your center does is phenomenal – challenging the “here, take a pill and feel better” mentality of the big-bucks-pharmaceutical-driven-mental-health world that, in many cases, may actually be harming patients.  You’ve shown how yoga, mindfulness, body movement, and a whole host of simple and “wholistic practices” can impact the parts of the brain impaired by trauma and resolve trauma symptoms.  As a woman of the next generation of therapists who knew even when I started my career 14 years ago that there was more to wellbeing than just giving someone a pill, I am estatic to be practicing in these times.  You and many of your colleagues have sustained what I knew in my body, heart, and gut were avenues to true healing.  That helps make my job a lot easier.  Thank you!

But, Dr., at the conference…you were cruel.

I say this with compassion.  It’s taken about a week to muster up this compassion.  At first I was shocked.  So were about 400 other people – as I observed from the audible gasp in the audience when you reacted with harshness to a comment.  Then I was angry – how could someone who is a trauma expert act with such cruelty?!  I was also flabbergasted that I saw people still buying your books!  I thought, “How can anyone have respect for this man?!”  I also heard that some of your colleagues can be “scared stiff” to work with you.

Then I practiced metta meditation.  I sent loving-kindness to you, as well as to myself and all the other practitioners who were there this past weekend.

Then my heart began to soften and my mind opened to understand what may be happening.  Here are three thoughts:

1. Vicarious trauma. Maybe you – like all of us who do this work – are carrying the stories of your patients in your own nervous system.  Maybe you are tired from your fighting against the “establishment”, working long hours for little pay, and seeing so many patients who have experienced the most horrendous of atrocities.  And maybe it has been a long time since you cared for yourself, acknowledged the impact of the work you do on your wellbeing, and done the very practices your research shows to improve functioning, lighten the heart, fortify the body, and heal the brain.
2. My own reaction. I love Eckhardt Tolle’s reminder that we are never angry for the reason we think we are and Michael Brown’s reminder that every person who triggers us is just a messenger showing us something about ourselves that we are not willing to see.  And that leads me to the next point – power.  My anger with you was an opportunity for me to be conscious of how I use my power and to also heal from the times others have used their power “in not so nice ways” in my life.
3. Power. Why did folks still buy your books?  Maybe they forgave you and could more easily look beyond the cruelty you displayed.  Possibly.  Maybe it also has to do with what you yourself have talked about:  when we’ve been traumatized, we look to align and attach ourselves to a person of power – even if that person is the same one who is hurting you. It’s a self-survival strategy.

Power is a curious thing.  In this culture and times many of our leaders lead with fear.  As you put it, President Bush during 9/11 was acting as a “limbic man” – a man caught in fight-or-flight.  A man who was scared himself and led from a place of fear.

When we lead from a place of fear – as a world leader, trauma expert presenting, manager in an office job, or parent – we may get the respect we want and people may follow us without question.  No squabbles. People still buy our books.   Our children listen to us.  Nations align themselves with us.

But what. are. we. doing. to. the. hearts. bodies. brains. and psyche of those we lead?????????

This is how many dictators have led. This is how many atrocities have been committed.  Dr. Trauma expert, you, me, every one of us feeds this “cruel energy” when we ourselves are scared, “limbic people,” and we lead using fear to command and attract followers – at a conference, at home, at the United Nations table.

Like I’ve said in another post, I do not want to be this kind of leader.  I don’t think you do either.  I think you, too, know – not just in your head but in your heart and body – that there is another type of power.  The power of gentleness, compassion, and presence.  The power of building people up instead of tearing people down.  The power of joining (Carl Rogers), integrating (Dan Siegel), and being a compassionate presence (Jack Kornfield).  The power of acting from a place of abundance and love instead of deficit and fear.

I do NOT believe that it is “survival of the fittest” that has kept the human species comin’ along.  But rather it is the “love and nurturance” we have shown each other throughout time that sustains human life.

So, dear colleague, I don’t think you’ll ever read this post.  But, I hope you feel my prayer to you – and all of us – that we lead from a place of love.  That we nurture our own selves by being consciously aware of what residual or vicarious trauma we are holding.  That we do the healing work necessary to have compassion for ourselves.  And then we are able to react less to people from our limbic system and respond more from the heart.

And it starts with being a conscious leader right here, right now in whatever ways we have power.  Thanks Gandhi – peace does begin with you/me.

The Binky Blessing

The other day I wrote the post, The Binky Battle.  Today the binky is a blessing.

I was sobbing — I mean SOBBING — last night and this morning.  Now, usually I am not a crier.  I wish I was.  It cleanses the soul let alone the limbic and nervous systems.  Many years ago, one of my best friends (you know who you are!) once said to me without any embarrassment, very matter-of-factly and totally accepting of herself, “I cry about once a week!”  I was absolutely in awe of her.  I’d love to accept my crying so wholesomely.

The sobs as of late have been those “whole self” cries. The ones that rise up from a space deep within.  The ones that, when you are finished, you feel tender and paradoxically fragile and strong.

Why the crying?  Well, there was a trigger (taking away C.’s binky and hearing her cry as I was with her).  But as Eckhardt Tolle says, “You are never mad/sad/angry for the reason you think you are.”

It’s old stuff.  Old stuff that I can’t even name well.

But I do know weaved in there was the sadness a mother (or parent) knows: the fact that I cannot protect my children 100% from suffering in this life (I know, I know, nor would I want to).  It is an ache within me that wraps around the inside of my ribs and stomach knowing that they will suffer and feel pain and be hurt (yes, I know, rationally and mystically, that suffering draws us closer to the Divine and each other, and beauty, strength, and committed action can sprout from that suffering.  But the ego part of me still rejects this truth at times!).

Well, today I experienced yet again that crying can be a release of some of the “stuff” that has been held on to too tightly and has become toxic to the system.  The “stuff” that we’ve tried to keep at bay but has really just been there polluting our thoughts, hearts, and actions.  And our bodies are now flushing it out.

Often I, along with most of us in this culture, want to pinpoint “the why” to our suffering because we think that knowing “why” will bring relief and healing.

But it doesn’t.  Information informs but it doesn’t heal.

A few years back I attended a workshop of Patrick Daughtery (excellent, by the way), a leading psychotherapist who incorporates Qigong into his work.  His words have stayed with me, “You gotta feel it to heal it.”

Yes.  You’ve got to BE with it all — whatever arises. in. the. moment.  And in. the. body.

Allow it.  Be with it.  Breathe with it.  Without reacting in our habitual ways of pushing the suffering away or totally getting consumed by it.  Oh what a great reminder for me today!

I often quote Thich Nhat Hanh in my work — this adorable and wise Vietnamese Buddhist monk.  He suggests that when there is pain, allow it to rise and say, “Oh there you are, dear one.  I see you and that’s why I am here.”

As we allow it all to be present — as we feel it — it just moves through.  And healing happens.  Our suffering has less of a grip on us.  We release our hurts.

It’s been a long time since I’ve treated these particular sufferings within me that had me crying today as “dear ones” and allowed them air to breathe and then move on. Ahhh…what sweet release.  What liberation.

So thank you, binky.  What a blessing.